Thanks for sharing that information, Mountain Ash.

I hadn't thought of it that way, but I know you are correct based on the courses I took in child development while in college.

I'm proud of how both kids turned out. Steve, Bill and I worked hard to co-parent in a positive way. Since we had joint custody during the time Bill was alive, we made sure we talked a couple of times a week to be sure we three parents always knew what was going on in their lives. And, all three of us went together to parent teacher conferences, etc., and we made sure that in spite of Bill's and my differences, we never said negative things about each other in front of the kids.

Probably the hardest day in Steve's and my life was the day we had to tell the kids, then aged 12 and 9, that Bill had died.

It was during the first week of January, and at Christmas time he had been well enough to DRIVE them to visit his parents. So they -- and we -- were taken by surprise at how fast his health deteriorated at the end. (We took them regularly to the hospital to see him but the evening he died we had not brought them, at the request of his nurses, who said he'd had a bad day, but that he'd be better again by the next day.)

Oh my! Let's get this conversation back to the joys of having three grandmas...